Food Scandal
by Malicean
Summary: Governmental contracts usually go to the lowest bidder. Even in galaxies far, far away. And, here or there, you get what you pay for.
1. The Beginning

Work in a shipboard science lab is mostly routine. Samples from med-deck, samples from all kind of tech departments, and once a week you run a few random samples of tomorrow's foodstuff through your analyzers, rechecking quality and scanning for contaminants. I never found anything outside the norm.

Until today.

Container GI/1H2/X2000/S/17/JK4/TBG8-871346, labeled _'All-purpose Nutri-meal, 2 t'_ – and destined to supply the food processors of Mess MV37 with the resources to provide adequate nutrition for 5000 people, mainly troops, tomorrow – is not all it is supposed to be. Cellulose is considerably higher than the specs allow, but more importantly, there is a little over one percent of fural that shouldn't be there, at all. To find this substance is unexpected and its concentration fairly high, so I rerun the test, then triple-check the results.

Then I ask a colleague to rerun the samples for me, to make sure it's not an artifact of my equipment, while I look up fural in the database, trying to find a reasonable explanation how it might have ended up in the ship's provisions.

Accidental contamination, I soon realize, is pretty much out.

When Osin confirms my results, I compile them into an official report and hand it over to Lt Cdr. Zeist, the officer in charge of the lab. He skims over the report and signs it off, without any indication of concern, which does a lot to alleviate my own unease, but as I have never – in my admittedly not very long career – encountered such a situation and am somewhat unsure about the proper procedures, I ask him if he is to inform Provisions or if I ought to do that.

"Inform Provisions?" he asks back, one eyebrow raised, "The concentration is below toxic levels, there is no need for that."

I work very hard to keep my jaw from dropping. "Sir, the dose is almost a hundred times the acceptable intake."

"Which was established with rather generous safety factors, as you should know." The eyebrow has descended into a frown and his tone brooks no argument, when he adds, "That will be all, Lieutenant."

"Yes, sir." What else is there to say?

I return to my workstation and carry on with my job, but by the end of my shift there's still no changing the fact, that tomorrow five thousand men will ingest a harmful chemical and at a dose that isn't far off the level where observable effects start manifesting.

Five thousand are enough to risk breaking a few rules – written and unwritten – for, I decide. I could send a message, of course, but I do not have the clearance to give it priority, that's Zeist's job, after all, and time is a critical factor. So I swipe a datapad and download the report on it, before I leave the lab. I'm going to inform Provisions after all.

Oo oo oo oo oo oO

Provisions is mainly gigantic droids, I find out, and not very smart ones, at that. After various detours, I'm at long last redirected to one of the few humans in charge of feeding almost three hundred thousand people every day.

The incongruently gaunt commander listens to my finds, gives a half-smile, and says, "Lieutenant, I guess you mean well, but you have no idea what kind of chaos would result if we didn't use exactly the container that stands next on the list. So, since you said no one is going to die from this stuff, I'm not going to change anything without Captain's orders, understood?"

I do understand, frustrating as it may be, so I thank him for his time and leave.

_Now what?_

I slink back to the nearest turbolift, dejectedly, but once inside, I realize that the bridge is almost right above me, just a few dozen decks higher up. _Captain's orders, huh?_

I hesitate, I've seen the Captain exactly once, so far, during his welcome speech, when the crew complement, I was with, came aboard. Five thousand men suddenly seem not that much of a backing when approaching a man commanding more than fifty times that. But scuttlebutt says, he is a just and competent man…

At least, he ought to be informed, I decide, pressing the appropriate button before I can change my mind, what he does about it, is up to him, then.

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No one pays me attention, when I enter the bridge. Well, a lowly lieutenant with a datapad in hand looks very much the courier and some of those are probably expected to come and go at all times. That might work to my advantage, actually, as lieutenants aren't likely to show that much initiative, everyone will assume that someone of higher rank is behind my missive. I look around but can't make out the Captain, at first, and then the datapad is snatched rudely from my hand.

Without anyone standing within reach.

Fifteen steps ahead an ominous black figure is scanning through the datapad, finds it obviously not quite what he expected and turns to look at me.

_Oh Angels, I'm dead! _

"What is this?" a deep growl demands to know, and in the icy light-headedness of having nothing left to lose, I just forge ahead.

"The report on the contaminated provisions, s… milord."

"Contaminated provisions." Slow, deliberate syllables. The bridge crew gives a collective twitch that looks awfully like an aborted dive for cover.

_Yep, I'm definitely dead, for bothering his lordship with such trivialities_.

"At what scale?" The sharp growl is back.

_Huh?_ "Uh, five thousand men at subacute levels, milord." Too surprised to still be standing, I scramble for an intelligent answer and don't realize the Dark Lord has started to move towards me until he is almost right in front of me.

Staring straight ahead into a complicated set of life support controls does bad things to my concentration, but with a deep breath – _still alive, see?_ – I string a more complete sentence together. "That's the minimum, milord. The contaminant was detected during a routine test, which had a very limited sample size."

"You expect there to be more?" Something in that '_you_' is demanding to hear _my_ personal opinion, which is an odd thing to ask a mere messenger, and serves to instantaneously convert me to the faction that insists that his lordship can, in fact, read minds. I have to swallow before I can get any further words out.

"I don't know, yet, milord. But there is no way this could have been accidental, milord."

"Hm." The datapad is brusquely pushed back into my hands and the Dark Lord brushes past me in an impressive swirl of cloak. I scramble not to drop the pad and hurry after him.

Oo oo oo oo oo oO

The turbolift is fast – has to be, in a ship this size – but his lordship still finds the time to ask a few very pointed questions concerning the effects of the fural I found in the Nutri-meal. He also seems to know exactly where the real heads of Provisions are situated.

Almost at the door he asks me, "Who else knows about these finds?"

"Commander Feron, from Provisions, I notified him first. And Lieutenant Commander Zeist, naturally, he signed off the report, milord."

"And then he sent you to report this, in person?" If I didn't know better, I might almost read some dark amusement into the tone of that last question.

Well, from a certain point of view… "Yes, milord."

Invisible fingers brush across my throat, then shove me into the wall beside me.

"Do not lie to me," the Dark Lord says very quietly.

Under the circumstances, I consider that damn good advice.

Oo oo oo oo oo oO

His lordship has stalked into Provisions before I have picked myself off the floor. He is barking out orders that will mean no dinner for a quarter million people. No breakfast or lunch, either, possibly. 

_Good work, idiot, _I admonish myself,_ his lordship won't have to kill me personally, it'll be far more amusing for him to just step back and watch the disgruntled mob tear me to pieces. With civilization being just three meals ahead of barbarism, and so on. _

A black helmet turns towards me and I remember belatedly that there's a mindreader present, but the Dark Lord merely nods towards me and says, "The lieutenant will see to it that the tests are done in all alacrity."

"Yes, milord," I agree in unison with Cdr. Feron. His lordship abruptly wheels and disappears in another swirl of black fabric, leaving said commander to focus on me.

"You don't do small fry, do you, Lieutenant?" he says, after a moment of close scrutiny.

I open my mouth to protest and close it with a snap. It's not like he – or I – have the time to spare for explanations how his earlier reference to _'Captain's orders'_ ended up with the Supreme Commander of the Imperial Forces standing on his toes. Instead I try to get back to the problem at hand.

"Sir, how much Nutri-meal are we talking about, for the next three meals?"

"Forget dinner," he grins without humor, "preparation had already started, by now." Then the grin disappears and is replaced by a frown. "You're sure it's only the Nutri-meal, Lieutenant?"

"It's the main carbohydrate feed for the food processors, isn't it, sir? Fural is a cheap cheat for carbohydrates, it makes little sense elsewhere."

"So? Fine with me, it's your funeral, after all. You want the usual samples?"

Thankfully it gets technically after that, and within minutes I am free to run back to the lab, trying to get my overwhelmed brain to remember the officer in charge of the following shift and to compose a reasonable explanation as to why the lab is about to be absolutely swamped with top priority samples. I'm almost there, before I realize that _'Lord Vader's orders'_ is going to be all the reason I need.

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His lordship, however, has beaten me to the punch. When I enter the lab, I find it in utter turmoil. Grabbing the next best fellow science officer by the arm, it still takes some shaking to get Lt. Corel's attention and a bit more to get an explanation.

"Zeist's dead," he rambles, "Vader just…," a wavering hand indicates a sizable dent in the wall plating, with a maintenance droid working on it, before all that hard-won training kicks in and Corel makes a valiant effort to pull himself together.

"Lord Vader stormed in, had Zeist summoned back to the lab, demanded to know what he thought his job was, if a poison in the food didn't merit his attention, and when Zeist had no good explanation – and how could he have, really – he grabbed him by the throat and smashed him into the wall."

His spacer-pale face gets a bit greenish when he nods towards the wall again, a wall with the robustness of light armor plating – and I do not want to know, what the force necessary to put a _kriffing_ dent in that, does to the human body used as a battering ram. _Ugh._

But if I don't want to leave a matching dent in the opposite wall – and share my fate with the rest of the department, possibly – I have a job to do. I push through the milling mob until I find Lt. Cdr. Bansal, in charge of the current shift.

"Sir," I address the man who is currently staring at the top of his desk in dismay, "Provisions is sending over samples from all their Nutri-meal containers. Sir, you need to give them top priority…"

"Yes, yes," he snaps back in irritation, "his lordship already… wait a minute. Malan, what the hell are you doing here, you're in Zeist's shift…" Eyes widen, then narrow in icy fury. "You! You ratted out on Zeist!"

The lab falls deadly quiet.

"I didn't!" _Note to self, lieutenants should_ not _shout into a lieutenant commander's face. Not even when faced with unjust accusations on top of an already nightmarish day. _

"Sir," I get the volume down, but the indignant hiss isn't much better, career-wise. "I felt it my duty to inform Provisions of a serious contamination in the food they were about to serve. Provisions sent me to the Captain, but before I got there, the Supreme Commander took an interest in my datapad."

Deep gulp of air, but the bridges are burning so merrily behind me by now, that attack is the only option. "When his lordship asked me, if the officer who had signed off the _official_ report on it, had sent me, I said, _'yes'_. He then forcefully suggested not to lie to him. I considered that damn good advice. Sir."

Bansal is leaning away from me, nonplussed by the fierce outbreak, but before he can gather his wits and blast me in return, a loading droid filled to capacity with samples trundles in and chaos dissolves into frenzied activity. I grab a sample and a scanner and jump right in, because anything is better than to stop and think, right now. Bansal is calling my entire shift back in, which leaves space at a premium but doubles the workforce.

Zeist's fate soon makes the round in urgent whispers, and suddenly lack of space isn't much of a problem around me. I try to ignore that.

"Is it true, Malan?" Lt. Eroi asks in an undertone, just when I think the social ice-age is complete. "You…"

"I what?" Eroi is a nice guy, polite to a fault and rarely the one to initiate a conversation, and I really admire his courage to talk to the _'traitor'_ directly instead of listening to the rumors, but I don't have much patience left for playing guessing games.

"_You_ not only went over Zeist's head without telling him, _you_ went straight to the top," Lt. Larnon brashly cuts in.

He's working next to me, usually, a loudmouth with all the inhibitions of a hungry rancor. "Now, Mal, I know you well enough to realize that you don't have the guts to literally climb over the dead bodies of your superiors to gain a promotion," he grins nastily, "so what the hell were you thinking?"

Oh well, my reputation is beyond salvage, anyway, I might just as well tell them the stupid truth. "Five thousand men were about to eat poison. I wasn't going to let that happen, on my watch, even if the dose was low."

Larnon chuckles incredulously, "You shot your career to hell for some mudsuckers who wouldn't even have noticed? They're just grunts…"

"Watch it, 'non," I snap back, "my brother is a _mudsucker_, too. An officer, mind you, but he still eats in the main mess, every other day…"

"As do I, occasionally. It does wonders for morale." Everyone turns towards the door at the unexpected interruption, then snaps to attention.

The hard-eyed man in the entrance may not be Navy, but he's still a couple of pay-grades above everyone else in the room. "Now, what is this nonsense about someone putting poison in the food for my men?"

Everyone turns to me.

_Ah, hell, here we go again_. "Sir, a routine test detected substantial, though subacute levels of fural in a Nutri-meal container assigned to Mess MV37." There, all the pertinent facts in one sentence.

"And what's that supposed to mean, Lieutenant?" The general has an air about him, as if he might go hand-to-hand with any of his troops and come out on top. If I hadn't had a close encounter with a Sithlord already, today, I would have thought him intimidating. My colleagues obviously do, the way they step back at his approach.

"Sir, it means someone thought he could turn a tidy profit by using a lot of cheap fillers instead of real food in the Nutri-meal he sold to General Supplies. Then he added a cheap feedstock chemical to cheat the standard tests checking for nutritional value." That's not quite what he was asking for, I see in the general's flinty eyes. But he waves me to continue.

"What does it do, this cheating chemical?" he demands to know.

"Sir, fural gives ten times as strong a signal in the standard carbohydrate test as any sugar does. When ingested, at the levels detected, it won't cause any acute symptoms, sir, but repeated intake damages the liver and compromises the immune system."

The general looks like he would like to damage some livers, too. Preferably by cutting them, piecemeal, from a score of living bodies. Good. I feel pretty much the same.

"Hm. See that it doesn't come to that. Carry on."

"Yes, sir," the whole lab choruses and turns back to work.

The general, however, does not simply walk away. He steps beside me, gives me a long, hard stare and snaps off, "What unit?"

_Huh?_ My utter confusion must have shown, since the general adds a clarifying, "Your brother, Lieutenant."

"Uh, 43rd Walkers, sir. Colonel Stricoff's troop, sir." _Where did that come from?_

"'Rooster' Stricoff, huh?" The general looks pensive, for a moment, "Put up a rather impressive parade, a few months ago."

_Uh oh._ One of my most priced possessions aboard is a holo-vid my brother sent me a few months ago with the lapidary comment of _'I start left'_. It shows two rows of AT-ATs marching forward with their usual ominous gravity, while two units of scout-walkers perform a crazy slalom race between and underneath the ambling giants, crossing their and each other's paths with barely a meter to spare.

I most sincerely hope that wasn't said parade. Mom would kill me if I manage to get my brother assigned to the _Executor_, too. I haven't dared yet to tell her I'm on that ship, and I'm supposed to be the sensible one. No that I would subscribe to that title, anymore.

Unaware – or so I hope – of my gloomy thoughts, the general finally retreats for good. I breathe a sigh in relief, before finding Lt. Cdr. Bansal standing next to me.

"If you intend to have His Majesty over for tea and chit-chat, next, Malan, I would appreciate a forewarning," he says with dry sarcasm.

"Not that I am aware of, sir," I reply with all the calm I can manage.


	2. Interlude

His Majesty fails to appear, and so do any further catastrophes.

The samples for breakfast and lunch get finished before the food processors have to be supplied, so the crew misses only one meal. 644 out of 1473 containers processed by Tobugir Agricorp, reference code TBG8, turn out to be adulterated. No other supplier seems to be affected. A further analysis of all products supplied by Tobugir finds the same isotopic signature in both the fural and the unadulterated samples, further evidence that the company is actually involved and not just had their label appropriated as a front for the real scammers.

All throughout the galaxy, SciCorps officers are checking the provisions of their ships and General Supplies is checking their stocks. The galaxy literally hates me, now – I ruined the week for millions of people.

Oo oo oo oo oo oO

After ten very hectic – and socially strenuous – days, I find a summons among my messages, for a meeting in one of the tactical presentation rooms near the bridge, at 0800 tomorrow. I swallow my panic, inform the officer in charge of my shift – _Osin made Lieutenant Commander, who would have thought_ – and try to get all the facts about this whole sordid affair into my head as well as on a datapad.

By 0600 I'm perfectly prepared, by 0755 I'm close to crumbling and that's before I step into a darkened, sound-proof room to find the Captain, the flint-eyed general – whose name is Veers, I found out in the meantime – and a number of other officers waiting. Not for me, fortunately, I'm just waved over to sit among the other junior officers, nor for his lordship, technically speaking, who enters the room exactly on time, but for the portly Admiral Ozzel, who arrives about a minute late. Once the admiral has finally found his seat, the Captain opens the meeting by quoting the abstract of the final report on our analyses almost verbatim, and I relax, slightly. I'm back at full alert when he finishes with "The _Executor_ will make orbit around Jiguk Four in twenty-two hours," and relinquishes the floor to General Veers.

Jiguk Four, reference code JK4, an agricultural world I had never known existed, until I checked out a certain container. One of the many, mostly unheard of, breadbaskets of the Empire. Homeworld of Tobugir Agricorp. Which, in turn, is about to receive a very rude awakening, the details of which the general is currently displaying for the Dark Lord's approval.

It looks like Operation Overkill to me, the place is a foodstuff plant, not an enemy fortress, for stars' sake; but on second thought, the installation – processing most of the planet's harvests – is gigantic, so anything but a fast, well coordinated raid will leave the guilty parties with enough time to disappear the evidence and/or themselves. On third thought, the general probably relished in the chance to set up a real-life, planet-side exercise for his men, bringing all his nifty toys to bear.

His lordship asks a few questions, briskly answered by the general, gets the individual unit commanders pointed out to him – they account for most of the junior officers around the table – and finally nods consent.

Then the gleaming helmet turns to me. "Lieutenant Malan will accompany the second wave and secure the evidence."

_I will? Uh, well, obviously, I will._ A number of other heads turn towards me, most of the younger stormtrooper officers look less than impressed until the general gives me a curt nod.

"Due to her unique familiarity with the case, Lieutenant Malan is predestined to find all the evidence."

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Later that evening someone knocks rather forcefully at the door of my cabin. I get up to answer it with some trepidation, the social disgrace has not yet dissolved into physical violence, but in a place where literally everyone has at least some hand-to-hand training, that option always exists. When the door slides aside, I stare into a wall of white armor.

"General's compliments, sir," the wall says, pushing a heavy bundle into my hands, "Hangar 57D at 0530."

"My thanks to the general," I call after the retreating trooper, then start to unwrap the unexpected gift. When I'm done, my jaw drops.

The general has sent me a Class Four tactical armor vest that actually fits me – and such a thing should not exist. Class Four is frontline combat armor that can stop a blaster or even rifle shot at point blank range, anything portable at more than that and even light vehicle guns at middle distances. High-ranking stormtrooper officers wear Class Four in battle. Women, however, are banned from all combat positions – which leaves SciCorps one of the few branches where one can actually make a career in the military – and even if that weren't the case, I'm still a couple of centimeters below the minimum height requirement for stormtroopers. _Eerie._

The vest was wrapped inside the matching overtunic, and around a datapad that contains all troop placements for tomorrow – I already had those – plus another list of units, that seems to be a summary of the employed troops. It takes me a second reading to realize, that it's in fact a list of units consigned to Mess MV 37.

The general has made sure that every single trooper about to drop on top of Tobugir Agricorp has a personal stake in the mission.


	3. Investigation

Fortified with a cup of tea so strong it eats the spoon if left unattended, armored and armed – for the first time since Academy – I strap into my seat at exactly 0530. The _Executor_ has not even fallen out of hyperspace, yet. There are three other officers with me at the back of the cockpit and two platoons of troopers in the main hold.

I fiddle a bit with my com-link, unbothered by the fact that it might make me look nervous, and finally get the secure canal used by the troops behind me. _Three cheers for the general_ – when I found the list of canals at the bottom of my orders, I had hoped it would mean that my com-link has been authorized for those, too, but I wasn't sure until now. Their idle chatter is reassuringly human – halfway unintelligible for anyone not into their jargon, but soothingly familiar – and provides some distraction from the feel of ghostly fingers across my throat.

You show initiative once, while his lordship is watching, and the next time he gives you enough rope to hang yourself properly – or gain success fully on your own merit.

Oo oo oo oo oo oO

A few minutes later, the airlocks hiss closed, a sergeant ends the current discussion by offering to stand on the shoulders of the next man to open his mouth for useless chatter while the latter does his push-ups, and the _Executor_ slides back into real-space as smoothly as any highbred pleasure yacht.

Many, many decks above me, I imagine a coolly composed Captain Piett address a shocked System Control planetside, whose displays just lit up with fireworks, because a mass, large enough to exert its own gravity on small vessels, has jumped in from hyperspace, almost close enough to assume orbit. Fun fact about a SSD, the sheer size of the thing wreaks havoc with the identification systems of most civilian scanners, so there's no telling just what the poor slob down there might be seeing on his screen.

Further along the ship, Lord Vader's shuttle plus its honor guard of TIEs are dropping out of their respective hangars, on their way to an urgent meeting with the local governor – a post I wouldn't want to hold, right now, for all the riches of the Imperial Treasury. I give Jiguk System Control five minutes to sieve out his lordship and entourage from the lightshow, and while they're busy with that, the first wave of the raid is going to touch down on the opposite side of the planet, hopefully with literally no forewarning.

Oo oo oo oo oo oO

Another fifteen minutes after that, the second wave, including my transport, leaves the _Executor_, and, as soon as Jiguk Four's gravity starts to reach out for them, the dropship lives up to its name. I feel my stomach hit the roof of my mouth, swallow heavily – good thing I was too nervous for a proper breakfast – and smile through clenched teeth at the armored pilot, whose private bet with his copilot about their passengers' resilience to freefall took place on a canal I can also listen in on.

Despite the near meteoric inbound flight – all good procedure, to minimize the time any hostile has to shoot down the transport – the landing is as smooth as you'd expect from a professional.

The troops are pouring out and assuming a defensive formation before I and the rest of the officers have finished removing their crash webbing, but, naturally, there is no opposition outside.

I check that the SR8 unit – an ugly but highly useful piece of machinery that looks like the illegitimate offspring of a probe droid and an astromech, and mainly functions that way, too – is unloaded properly and fully operational. Then I turn around to find a black-clad lieutenant standing impatiently and a half-platoon of stormtroopers standing impassively behind me.

The lieutenant is looking down on me in a way that has nothing to do with the fact that he could easily rest his chin atop my helmeted head.

"Sergeant, you have your orders. Lieutenant, they are yours," he bites out grudgingly, before turning on his heel and stalking off, without bothering with a proper exchange of salutes. _Idiot. Like it was my idea to walk off with half of his favorite toys._

"Sergeant," I acknowledge the white-armored man at the front, and get a sharp "Sir!" in return.

Having consulted my datapad to quickly orient myself, I walk off with a curt "This way, Sergeant," heading – I sincerely hope – for Quality Control. The SR8 trundles after me and the half-platoon of troopers falls in behind me. _So far, so good._

Or not.

"Remind me, Sarge," I hear a trooper grumble on their internal helmet-com, somewhere behind me, "whose brilliant idea was it, to put us on babysitting duty?"

_And that gentlemen,_ I can hearone of my instructors at the Academy say,_ is the reason why you always stick to proper protocol among yourselves if there are troops present, for nothing breeds disrespect among the ranks faster than disrespect among the officers. _

"Guy named Maximilian Veers, I believe, or possibly Darth Vader," I reply in an absentminded tone, and get a moment of stunned silence in return.

Then there's a strangled sounding string of syllables from the com, which I can not identify even as far as what language they might constitute – which is probably for the best for everyone involved – and a very careful, externally audible "Sir?" from the sergeant.

"The man who came up with this plan," I explain in the selfsame tone, "I think it was General Veers. I'm sure I have his com-code somewhere here," I make a show of flipping through my datapad, "we could ask him, if you require clarification."

I stop and turn towards the sergeant abruptly, forcing him to draw up sharply, to avoid walking right into me, which no sergeant should do to any lieutenant, no matter the size.

"And if it wasn't him, I'm sure he has a way of getting in contact with Lord Vader," I add as an afterthought, my face a study of polite neutrality.

SciCorps, silent R, audible S; or **S**carily **C**lever **I**diots, to quote some of the more polite descriptions of what the rest of the armed forces see in us, and I intent to make the most of it, if that's what it takes to get some respect.

"Sir, that won't be necessary, sir," the sergeant hurries to reply.

"Glad to hear that, Sergeant," I say with a pleasant smile, "but to make sure we are all on the same," _side,_ "page, just what precisely are _your orders_?"

"Sir, to assist Lieutenant Malan as requested, sir!" Oh, the intricacies of military parlance.

I hide my less than pleasant smile by turning back and resuming to walk. In the literal sense – and stormtroopers are very literal creatures – the men were ordered to assist me whenever I tell them to. Not the lift of a finger without my say-so. Which is fine if I plan accordingly – and has all sorts of pitfalls, up to the fatal kind, when things do not go according to plan.

A few further questions ascertain that the sergeant has no idea what exactly my mission, which he is supposed to assist in, is, so I bring him and his men up to speed, as far as the limited time allows.

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The head of Quality Control turns out to be a Dr Iewujin, a creature I can not readily identify as to species, gender or age. Humanoid, about my height while kneeling, with slightly canine features, long, thin multi-jointed fingers and a slate-blue skin, glistening with a wet sheen.

The part of my mind that still thinks twelve years of my life a bargain price for the chance to explore the mysteries of the galaxy, speculates eagerly if the moist coating is a stress reaction akin to sweat or a natural state for this being, and whether the secretion might be poisonous. The rest of me wonders what sort of idiot makes an alien head of Quality Control in a facility working exclusively on governmental contracts. Either motivated by personal disgruntlement or easily coerced, that's a written invitation for manipulation.

I have the SR8 unit jack into one of the boxy instruments standing in neat rows along the wall, to access its internal memory banks and the eighteen months worth of raw data stored there, and order it to run a Fourier transformation and a basic visualization program on all samples stored. Meanwhile I busy myself with official documentation.

The act serves, oddly enough, to calm down the alien. Either it – neither body form nor clothing give any easy clues whether it might be male or female or something else entirely – is smugly assured of the success of its cover-up, or ignorant of anything untoward. _Interesting._

The lab journals are excellent – nothing less would do for Quality Control – but, as I expected, not very helpful for my mission.

I order the droid to show me the most recent sample results. It does so, and I scan over the spectrum, while the SR8 softly rumbles through the rest of its task. Everything looks in order, not quite as smooth and polished as the readouts the more sophisticated processing programs would produce, but at least not manipulated by those, either.

I catch a movement from the corner of my eye and find that the alien has leaned closer, to find out what I was doing, and the sergeant moving in to intervene.

"If I knew what you are looking for, Lieutenant,..." Dr Iewujin starts, ducking away quickly from the threatening rifle butt. I wave off its assistance and that of the sergeant with the same dismissive gesture, waiting for the droid to finish its task.

When it reports success, I give its next instruction. "Scan all spectra for peaks in the area between 7.00 and 7.45. Show me all you find."

"There are no peaks between 7.00 and 7.45," the alien interjects, softly, and I almost turn towards the head of Quality Control with a smile.

I'm starting to like the calm competence exuding from the alien, before catching myself immediately at the thought. It can't be very competent if the amount of fural we found on the _Executor_ alone has slipped through beneath its notice; but if it is as good as I'm getting the impression it is, then it has to be involved in the adulteration – and fairly deeply, too. In which case, I'm considering to point out that fact to my escorts and then simply turn my back.

My tone is somewhat predatory when I reply, "Not within specs, no. So let's hope, for your sake, that the SR8 finds no more than a handful of samples that contain such signals, Doctor."

"It won't," the alien is very confident, as far as I can tell, a confidence that holds for exactly thirty seconds, before the droid starts piling spectra upon spectra onto the viewscreen. It doesn't grow pale at the unexpected sight, instead the slate-colored face dissolves into a striking pattern of black and electric blue.

Squashing the curiosity at the sight and the disappointment – I _was_ starting to like the alien – I turn back at the screen. And feel like kicking myself.

"Remove all spectra with a peak level of 300 ppm or below," I amend, and the deluge dwindles down to the handful of samples you'd expect to fall out of spec, even in a well perfected production line.

The arresting stripes flow slowly back together towards a homogenous complexion, and I resign to check all of the other instruments as well, without much hope of finding anything – Dr Iewujin was far too confident for that – when a slight oddity catches my eye.

The spectra are aligned by ascending age, and the foremost of the six is some sixteen months old. The oldest adulterated container we found on the _Executor_ had a production date of fourteen months ago stamped on its side.

I might be grasping at straws now, but to allay the niggling feeling at the back of my mind, I order the droid to show me the previous ten spectra and the following ten spectra starting from the one I'm looking at, and to enhance the area between 7.00 and 7.45.

The spectra show minimal traces of fural almost in every sample, all perfectly normal. _Damn._ I thought I had something here, something to keep his lordship's immaterial fingers off my neck.

With that happy thought I order the droid to forward one month and give me another ten spectra. There's nothing in the area between 7.00 and 7.45 but the baseline. Random samples from all the intervenient months since then show the same. I whistle softly.

"Care to explain?" I ask the head of Quality Control, turning the screen over to it.

There is a rather recognizable frown on the alien's face while it flips through the data I show it, before realization dawns and the striking pattern resurfaces, more pronounced even than before.

"I didn't know," it stutters, "I swear to you, Lieutenant, I had no idea…" I can actually believe that.

"SR8, access the service logs, show me anything that happened within a month around this sample." There is a maintenance logged, five days after the last out-of-spec sample, and ever since the instrument has not recorded any signals in the frequency area where fural would show up.

It's been very expertly done.

I have the droid locate the maintenance worker and run into a dead end – literally. The man died three months after the manipulation, by an off-duty accident according to an eagerly helpful chorus composed of the employees lined up on their knees along the wall, with their hands on their heads.

_Damn._ There goes my shortcut to the brain behind the whole affair, which was obviously smart enough to see that risk, too, and removed it.

Oo oo oo oo oo oO

In a willful act of spite against whoever set up the poor creature as the perfect fall guy, I put a little extra emphasis on _undamaged_, when I instruct the troops guarding Quality Control to keep a good watch on Dr. Iewujin, driven home by a – purely hypothetical – "Lord Vader will want to talk to this one personally."

I might have gone a bit overboard with that, I realize, when there's a muffled thud behind me, that is the Head of Quality Control hitting the floor in a dead faint.


	4. Confrontation

The main compounding unit, where the Nutri-meal is assembled from various carbohydrate sources and the basic mix subsequently enriched with vitamins, essential trace elements, etc., is the next stop. If I wanted to add an adulterant during production, I would do it here. I hope the poisoners followed the same line of thought, because if I have to backtrack to the fural production – extracted from agricultural wastes a couple of kilometers down the line – and pick up the scent from there, I'm really scraping rock bottom.

Oo oo oo oo oo oO

The man in charge of Compounding is a blubbering wreck that fills even his colleague beside him with cold disdain. I take in the military-grade straight posture and the icy eyes, the obvious recognition of the – somewhat obscure – uniform I wear and the barely concealed loathing he feels towards the white-armored men shoving him around, and settle on ex-officer. Possibly even ex-SciCorps.

Hoping to get someone whose mindset I can understand, I decide to talk to this prisoner first. I know one or two retired officers, and in my experience they value military efficiency even more than most active ones. I ask my first question in a clipped precision that I left mostly unused since my Academy days, and it works wonders here, too.

The man is Captain (retired) Aiglen and yes, he's formerly of the SciCorps. I grant the man a minute or so for reminiscence, to set him at ease, but just when I'm about to continue, the sergeant whom I have sent to accompany the SR8 unit to the nearest docking station and get me the latest recipe fed into the system, returns and, naturally, cuts across Aiglen's sentence with his report.

The ex-captain gives the sergeant a glance of such icy contempt, it chills me to the bone. It's the sort of look you use on insects, perhaps droids, but not humans.

On a hunch, I try to channel Cadet Guos, haughtiest Coruscati bitch I ever had the misfortune to meet, while accepting the stormtrooper's report.

I'm not surprised, when Aiglen, in the firm belief of having found a kindred soul, asks for "a moment of your time, Lieutenant," significant look, "in private?"

_Jackpot._

I turn at the sergeant and wave dismissively. "You heard the man, give us some space."

"Sir?" the sergeant is obviously confused, but smart enough to make sure only I can hear his follow-up of "I hope, you know what you are doing, sir."

_So do I, Sergeant, so do I._

I make another shooing gesture, "Wait over there, I'm sure you'll hear me if I require your assistance."

"Understood, sir," the com says, for my ears only, then the sergeant salutes smartly and retreats towards the wall I indicated, taking the rest of the troopers with him.

The ex-captain watches him go with cool disgust in his eyes and a half-loud grumble that might have been "no respect for their betters."

I don't react, he keeps quiet. _Oh well, sometimes you have to place your bets before the game can begin._

I return the datapad to its clip, flip the com-link away from my face while thumbing sensitivity all the way to the stop, think of Cadet Guos and tell no one in particular, "The captain of my last ship always liked to put the SciCorps officers up as volunteers for the role of opponent in the stormtroopers' monthly full-scale exercise. He said it bred the right kind of contempt."

Aiglen's face darkens. "A proper officer would never..." he starts, and falls into a rant about the common stormtrooper's lack of manners, intelligence and generally redeeming features, especially compared with the shining light of intellect and discipline that is the SciCorps.

I make the occasional vaguely agreeing noise and keep a polite face by means of the mental exercise of planning how to get my hands on a private copy of the speech the datapad at my belt, and the com-units in each of the stormtroopers' backpacks, respectively, are recording. I absolutely have to get this gem of wisdom to my brother. I think I'll give it the title _Floccinaucinihilipilification_ – there is no better term to describe this highly sophisticated, but utterly self-aggrandizing tirade.

Aiglen pauses for breath with the rhetorical question if I know how much more the Empire spent on my education than on the training of a trooper.

"Factor of thirty-one," I reply promptly.

"Exactly!" the ex-captain is delighted, and expands on the troops general worthlessness, in the eyes of the Empire or otherwise. And since my answer has not only proven me to be well-informed and an attentive listener, but the sort of mind that actually cares about such factors, he can't resist the opportunity to bask in the appreciation of an intellectual equal.

Listening to his razor-sharp Core enunciation, the purely logical part of my mind admires the unbroken chain of reasoning. His explanation is utterly rational, its logic flawless, as long as you start on the basic premise that a trooper's life is of negligible worth – a premise all too many people would subscribe to.

It's not crude avarice that made the man put a mix of ground chaff and poison into the troops' food, nor is it active malice – not in his own eyes, that is. It's the firm conviction that they are not worth the expenditure of real food, hence the chaff. Adding fural to balance the test results was just the smart thing to do, afterwards, and pocketing the money a mere side benefit.

A lucrative side benefit, though. The numbers mentioned are… impressive. When Aiglen goes off on a tangent about what a shame it is that certain expenses have to be paid regardless of the recipient's intelligence – the only true measure of worth in the ex-captain's eyes – the rest of my mind, which has found it increasingly difficult to maintain the polite expression, decides that enough is enough.

I nod slowly, playing for time to unclench my jaws, and smile the toothiest smile I can manage. "That should be enough, don't you think so, _Sergeant_?"

The entire half-platoon agrees, loudly, and this time I'm most likely not exaggerating when I say, "Lord Vader will be most interested in your story, too, Aiglen."

Oo oo oo oo oo oO

I made sure to always keep a clear line of fire between the troops and the prisoner, I kept my eyes on his face, and saw the slightly condescending expression freeze and then distort with fury, but I also should have kept track of the prisoner's hands, at all times.

There is a deep _whoomp_ and I'm flying backwards, with the full half-platoon's worth of stun-shots going over my head. The pain doesn't register until I'm flat on my back and see the smoke rising from my torso.

_Damn, it hurts._ I can't breathe, I try to curl around the pain, but someone is holding me down. A boot comes down somewhere near my head, with the sickening crunch of breaking bone, and the sound jolts enough adrenaline into the system to get a sip of air.

"Need. Him. Alive." I get out at a wheeze, and the armored form above me promises that the prisoner is secured, then goes back to alternately shouting for the medic and promising dire consequences to whatever idiot was responsible for checking the prisoners for weapons. It's the sergeant, I think.

I twist my head around, trying to see for myself despite the reassurance, and find something lying on the floor that makes me realize that there's exactly one reason why I'm still alive enough to gasp in pain and not in two pieces strewn across the room.

_Gotta love the general!_

An awkward pause and a gruff "You better tell him that yourself," tells me that I was at least partially thinking aloud. I'm not sure if it's a variant of pep talk or flat-out refusal to breach the topic with his superior officer, but if it didn't hurt so much, I would laugh at the misunderstanding.

Oo oo oo oo oo oO

The medic appears, gives me a mask of pure oxygen that does wonders even at the shallow gasps that are all I can manage by then, and has the armor off me with a speed that speaks of plenty of experience.

When he starts to peel back the uniform jacket, there's a jerk and a sharp intake of breath from the sergeant that fills me with dread, but the medic simply runs his scanner over my torso, gives me a shot of something that makes breathing much easier and then something that makes most of the pain go away, smears the formerly burning parts of my belly with bacta gel and pronounces a verdict of "no serious internal injuries", which isn't half as reassuring as _no internal injuries_ would have been.

Then he gets up with a curt "You know the drill, Sarge" towards the sergeant and turns to leave.

I don't expect sterling bedside manners from a combat medic, but that's a bit harsh. I kick out, hooking one foot around his ankle and almost take the man to the ground by a feat of timing that would make any of my instructors proud. Then I claw my way up the sergeant's armor to get into a halfway sitting position without any strain on my much abused abdominal muscles.

"You'll have to excuse my ignorance, _Corporal_," I grind out, "but since this is the first time I have been shot, _I_ do not know the drill. Care to enlighten me?"

"Yes, sir, I'm sorry, sir!" I don't think his patients usually talk back to him. "It's…, uh, I mean…, you should be stable for the next few hours, sir, until a transport back to the ship can be organized, but there should be someone keeping you under surveillance, until then, to look out for signs of shock. Sir."

I nod, give a weak wave of dismissal, and decide to practice the art of delegation.

Oo oo oo oo oo oO

Ten minutes later I have a nice reclining seat among some sacks of supplements, with two troopers flanking me for security and supervision, and the rest of the half-platoon plus the SR8 unit is sent out to fetch me samples from every single component or supplement container around and the other evidence needed to conclude the case.

I recline in a comfortable haze, born of painkillers pre-packaged in doses intended for solidly muscled males, and spend a moment grinning idiotically, as soon as the sergeant is out of sight. Ah, the memory of how the man did flounder with his address, until I reassured him that the Navy uses "sir" as the default, regardless of gender, and I expect him to do the same. Seems that helmet and thick armor vest managed to conceal my body shape so thoroughly that he took me for a boyish, short male until the medic removed the outer tunic and the sergeant suddenly found his restraining hands somewhat inappropriately placed.

The grin might have made the haze obvious, for, after a few minutes of silence, one of my guardians ventures a questioning "Sir?"

"Hm?" I reply articulately but obviously encouraging enough for the man to continue.

"Sir, that true, factor of thirty-one, I mean, sir?" he asks.

"Oh yes," I smile fondly at the memory. "Funny side-effect of a friendly sibling rivalry. That's purely training costs, though, mind you. Degenerates swiftly with actual deployment. An experienced veteran like your sergeant is probably worth twice as much as me, all expenses considered…" I catch myself babbling and wonder if it's really just the generous dose or if the medic shot me with something tongue-loosening intended for use on prisoners, instead.

The troopers seem to suspect something similar, since there is a momentary – _stunned?_ – pause, before the other jumps in with "What about the other thing…, sir?"

"Also true. Captain Goran regularly volunteered SciCorps, administrative staff, nonessential techs, etc., in short the entire list of supernumeraries. All of which were proud members of the Imperial Navy, of course, unlike those poor, deluded fools who joined the Army…"

Another, definitely stunned, pause, before the second trooper replies, absolutely deadpan, "Yes sir, Poor, that's me, and Deluded is the trooper on your right, sir."

Laughing, I find, still hurts despite the painkiller.

Oo oo oo oo oo oO

The last thing, I have the sergeant seize for me, is the thing I spotted on the floor.

It's not a gun, it's not a weapon at all, technically speaking, but a tool. A plasma punch, to be precise – or at least that's what the techs aboard the _Executor_ called it – one of the few things that can conveniently cut through all kinds of standard packing crates. _The things you learn while tearing through an entire SDS's worth of provisions._

It would have cut, just as conveniently, through Class One armor. Or even Class Two, which is the outmost SciCorps ever issues to its officers.

As the security vids, the SR8 unit secured, show, the thing was there, the entire time, magnetically attached to one of the containers forming the niche I choose for the interview, looking very much a part of said container, to the unaccustomed eye. Whoever was in charge of searching the prisoners for weapons is not to blame for the attempted bisection. The fault was all mine.

I dread to explain that in my report, especially how to explain to General Veers how I managed to reduce a Class Four armor vest to slag without a shot fired – the energy input was so high it couldn't be absorbed or redistributed, so the armor turned ablative, evaporating all but the innermost layers. Those merely got searingly hot and were punched into my stomach by the expanding gases, according to the Third Law of Motion.

Oo oo oo oo oo oO

The opportunity comes sooner than expected, for the general is waiting at the landing zone assigned for my extraction.

He gives me a once-over, that doesn't fail to notice the missing vest, the scorched state of my outer tunic – at least I'm no longer trailing smoke – nor the trooper hovering beside me to ensure I keep upright, and asks, bluntly, "Running into trouble, Lieutenant?"

"A prisoner attempting an act of desperation, sir," I hasten to reply, "nothing serious."

"A word of advice, Lieutenant," the general says, and something in his tone makes me adjust my angle of sight from straight ahead to high enough to look into his eyes, "if you intend to make a habit of lying to your superior officers, you should know that it is considered bad style to do so when said superior officer can not avoid to notice that he is being lied to."

A moment's pause for emphasis, then, "Or is the SciCorps so removed from the rest of the armed forces, that in their jargon an assault on an officer on a high priority mission, that comes within a hair's breadth of burning straight through Class Four armor, is categorized as _'nothing serious'_?"

"No sir, I'm sorry, sir." Veers nods impatiently to go on, and I comply.

"I had a lapse in judgment, sir. The head behind this operation was a former SciCorps officer," I try to keep my voice and face neutral but I'm not sure if I succeed, "with a very rational line of arguments how he was not doing anything wrong. I made the mistake to assume he would stay rational after realizing that the rest of the galaxy didn't agree with him. It won't happen again, sir."

"It certainly won't," the general growls, "where is this piece of scum now?"


	5. The Aftermath

I relinquish my prisoner, take the next transport back to the _Executor_ and spend the next two days in the infirmary, flat on my back.

I use the time to write up my report, clearing up finer details by relaying the pertinent questions to the interrogation officers – I erred on the side of caution when deciding what prisoners to slate for transfer to the ship, better to set the spares loose with a quick _'the Empire appreciates your cooperation'_ than to overlook someone important. It's a bit scary, though, to see whose signatures many of the more salient of the returning interrogation protocols are bearing. General Veer seems to have taken on Tobugir Agricorp, while Lord Vader is tearing through the Jiguk Four officials.

I also prepare for the final debriefing, where I have to recount my accumulated findings to Lord Vader and assorted high-ranking officers. This time the summons arrives via a scowling chief medical officer, who's experienced enough to realize that his authority, to overrule all other orders when it comes to medical matters, ends exactly where Lord Vader decrees it ends. He does not declare me fit for duty but grudgingly gives me temporary leave for "as long as his lordship deems your presence necessary, Lieutenant."

Oo oo oo oo oo oO

Same time, same room; but since I did not only miss the standard debrief concerning casualties, losses of material, spent fuel and ammunitions etc., but the _Executor_ has rejoined the fleet, the audience has changed somewhat. Every capital ship in the vicinity seems to have sent her captain and/or the senior officer in charge of her troop contingent. I'm the only one in the room ranking beneath the Captain.

That alone would have made me rather nervous; however, the Chief Med has brought me breakfast in the form of a combat stim shot, which not only allows me to stand properly straight for a couple of hours, it also made me much less impressible by paltry rank bars.

Ozzel looks bored, the Captain attentive, Veers quietly angry, the rest of the officers I'd place somewhere between the latter two.

I'm jolted out of my musings when the deep mechanic voice orders me to begin.

The written report is rather extensive – and still growing, not all interrogations are completely finished, yet – but for the debrief I decided to keep it short and simple.

"Approximately two years ago, Prisoner 98-HT-678, an ex-officer by the name of Aiglen, in collaboration with Prisoner 98-HT-665, implemented an improved extraction method for fural, a feedstock chemical derived from agricultural wastes. Officially, the yield was improved from 80% to 85 %, but the actual improvement was an increase to over 90%." Aiglen helpfully provided that titbit in his rant, with a snide remark on how certain idiots higher up had actually paid him a bonus for the bogus improvement.

"The discrepancy allowed Prisoner 98-HT-678 access to enough unregistered fural to put a longstanding plan of his into action: to cut a substantial and steadily increasing portion of the Nutri-meal out-put of Tobugir Agricorp with a mix of agricultural byproducts unsuitable for human nourishment, using the fural to mask the fillers and make the adulterated endproduct conform to the standard Nutritive Value Test nonetheless. More specific tests in Quality Control, which would have detected the fural in the Nutri-meal, were sabotaged by a maintenance worker under orders from Prisoner 98-HT-678, who met an unfortunate accident soon after." Veers sneers openly at the _'Accident'_.

"Spot checks in General Supplies, that went beyond the standard test, were circumvented by monetary means. The bribable parties there are being arrested as we speak. Beginning about sixteen months ago, the total amounts to several million tons of contaminated Nutri-meal, all of it in packing units of one ton or above."

"Why the restriction?" Lord Vader cuts in, in a deceptively calm tone.

"That's the minimum for troop provisions, milord."

"Then price wasn't the issue." Statement, not question. "What was the motive then?"

"Milord, with your permission, I couldn't sum it up better than the prisoner already did." I hold up my datapad questioningly, and his lordship nods assent.

Ozzel barely bothers to hide that he, in general if not in measures taken, agrees with the _'dirty, common and inferior'_ assessment. The Captain looks plain disgusted and Veers I never get to look at, because black-gauntleted hands are slowly clenching into fists. _Somebody is going to die today. Please, please, please don't let it be me!_

"That will be enough." Slow, deliberate syllables. The datapad warps under my fingertips and obediently falls silent.

Caught in the sudden impulse to claw at my collar, it's pure reflex that makes me stand automatically when the Captain stands, together with Veers, the other officers and – with a moment's delay – Ozzel. Only when they start to file out, I recognize the abrupt dismissal for what it was and scramble after them.

I'm nearly through the door, when a curt "Lieutenant," brings me up short.

"Milord?" I manage past the lump in my throat.

For a moment only the ventilator hiss fills the room – it seems to suck the air right out of my lungs.

"You realize, of course, that such a massive case of Sabotage will be tried at Imperial Center."

I nod, but before I can open my mouth, his lordship continues.

"Regretful as the fact may be, but a certain disregard for the troops is not uncommon there. In provoking an attack with a deadly weapon upon an officer, however, you have demonstrated the culprits' _universal_ disregard for His Majesty's Armed Forces." The black mask remains as unreadable as always, but I could swear I can _hear_ Lord Vader's lips curl up in a sneer at that.

"I will propose a commendation, for your daring cunning, that has made the case iron-clad."

The wall is less than half an arm's length behind me, I can use the support. _Did the Supreme Commander of the Imperial Forces, Lord _Do-not-fail-me_ Vader himself, just willfully misinterpret a gross breach of proper procedure as something laudable and put me up for a commendation instead of the reprimand I expected?_

Basic civility – and a hefty dose of self-preservation instinct – wins out against the shock. "Thank you, milord!"

His lordship waves off the gratitude and issues dismissal with the same sharp gesture, allowing me to flee the room, at last.

Oo oo oo oo oo oO

Despite expectations, Captain (retired) Aiglen survives the day. According to expectations, he is charged with Sabotage, along with certain high officials from Jiguk Four and from General Supplies, in a high-profile trial at Imperial Center.

The media loves it. Some might feel a shred of sympathy, however misguided, for a rebel fighting for a nominally honorable cause, but greed and egotism are motives everyone is happy to condemn.

My personal testimony isn't deemed necessary, thankfully, the prosecutor simply gives out free samples of the final report – signed off by Lord Vader himself – and proceeds to talk the entire board of judges through the evidence by reference to it.

The public executions are media hits, too.

Oo oo oo oo oo oO

The social ice-age dissolves, over time, with a massively accelerated meltdown since Lt. Larnon and a few of his less savory cronies spent half a week in the infirmary with broken jaws.

There are nearly 40 000 troops aboard the _Executor_. Officers talk, same as crew does. And sometimes officers talk, while they dine in the main mess, conveniently spreading certain information without official announcements.

And troopers appreciate it, if someone thinks their life is worth something.

* * *

><p>AN: Born in major parts of the melamine food scandal, that killed at least half a dozen babies and sickened _hundreds of thousands_ more – I would really love to sic Lord Vader, Veers and the _Executor_'s worth of stormtroopers on the creatures that think cutting baby formula with feedstock chemicals is a good way to make quick money. The tragedy is, that if you look into literature, toxicity limits for melamine for skin contact and inhalation of dust have been around for decades, but the values for ingestion are relatively new – who would eat a feedstock chemical, after all? Even more tragic, it's not very toxic, at all. You'd have to have a very low body weight and eat the stuff practically by the spoonful to get an actually harmful dose. Cue babies living more or less exclusively on formula…

Fural, more properly named furfural, is an actually existing substance, too. It does the things I attributed to it, though I exaggerated the effects a bit (it might cause cancer, too, though, but the jury is still out on that). To date, however, no one has tried to cut foodstuff with it – as far as we know.


	6. Bonus Feature: Beyond the End

Bonus feature, not really meant to undo the story conclusion, but you've hit the right buttons at the bottom at the page often enough, that now this little Easter egg is your reward. Thanks everyone, I really appreciate the feedback, all those favs and alerts, but especially the wonderful reviews! :D

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><p><em>Extract of data burst[1] 18<em>_TNHE3W__09: Incoming messages for SSD Executor; Received 27xxxxxxxxx; Scan unsuspicious, Transmission authorized[2]._

[From: Lieutenant H. N. Malan, CIN 985K718A914; To: Lieutenant E. A. Malan, CIN 104M659E204]

Dearest Ecila,

WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN UP TO? I just had a weird encounter with my base commander, who in turn has had a nice chat with his old friend Max, who seems to be, and I quote, "favorably impressed by a Lt. Malan stationed on the _Big Ship_. Any relation?" I told the commander that we are siblings and he said, the aforementioned friend had asked for his impression on the Malan under his – the commander's – command. Then he said, "No promises, Malan, but your career might have just become interesting."

We both know, what he would have thought, if I had said _sister_ instead of _sibling_, but while I know you better than that, you are scaring me, sister mine, you are scaring me! Are you even aware the man has written the definite book on walker warfare? While_ you_ are supposed to fill a non-combat position! Try as I might, I can't come up with a reasonable scenario that involves the two of you and leaves an old warhorse like him impressed enough to come looking for more of the same. So it's the _unreasonable_ ones that worry me. We would have heard if the _Big Ship_ had been involved in the sort of action that might get even you under fire – which the law prohibits you to, I distinctively remember you telling Mom that!

Sign of life, please. NOW!

Hug

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><p><em>Extract of data burst 63<em>_KGFR8F39__: Messages transmitted by SSD Executor; Sent 27xxxxxxxxx; Scan unsuspicious, Transmission authorized._

[From: Lieutenant E. A. Malan, CIN 104M659E204; To: Lieutenant H. N. Malan, CIN 985K718A914]

Hi Hugh,

Thanks for the vote of confidence, bro! You may rest assured, that the only thing, I share with the general, is the old-fashioned notion that your own troops are not to be squandered. I also didn't get shot at. Details when we meet at Winter Fete (hopefully?), but you might like to keep half an eye on IC court news – especially should they mention food.

So he's the leading expert on _boys and their toys_? I had no idea. Decent commander, though, and Tall, Dark and Scary cares a lot more for the rank and file under his command than rumor would have it, too – not that anything I said would stop you anyway, should… an opportunity arise, would it? Tell you what, if I meet you on the _Lady _before I meet Mom, _I_ tell her we're on the same ship and _you_ get to tell her which one – you dragged her into this, not me!

Stay safe (I mean it, hotshot!)

Cila

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><p><em>Extract of data burst 38<em>_OLZG5J64__: Incoming messages for SSD Executor; Sent 28xxxxxxxxx; Scan unsuspicious, Transmission authorized._

[From: Lieutenant H. N. Malan, CIN 985K718A914; To: Lieutenant E. A. Malan, CIN 104M659E204]

Dear Cila,

Not good enough. _One,_ you did not get _shot_ at? Suspiciously specific denial!

_Two_, today I heard – secondhand, mind you! – that some idiot was spreading the idea that _'Mal's sister must be a really spectacular lay, even the troops talk about her'_. Before I could find the guy and express my opinion about his big mouth, someone – or rather several someones – pulled him into the shady gap between two hangars and broke almost every bone in his body. I was lucky to be 500 km away from base at that point and have my commanding officer plus almost half of the company along to provide me with an alibi! So, let me repeat myself: WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN UP TO?

Hug

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><p><em>Extract of data burst 41LSDH<em>_5F30__: Messages transmitted by SSD Executor; Sent 28xxxxxxxxx; Scan unsuspicious, Transmission authorized._

[From: Lieutenant E. A. Malan, CIN 104M659E204; To: Lieutenant H. N. Malan, CIN 985K718A914]

Hugh,

Please! You know how it works. It's too complicated to explain in a quick write. Let's just say the old warhorse was impressed because I think even a trooper's life is worth something, and the boys in white appreciate the sentiment, too.

Cila

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><p><em>Extract of data burst 57<em>_ZGQW0P77__: Incoming messages for SSD Executor; Sent 28xxxxxxxxx; Scan unsuspicious, Transmission authorized._

[From: Lieutenant H. N. Malan, CIN 985K718A914; To: Lieutenant E. A. Malan, CIN 104M659E204]

Cila,

If you write about tens of thousands of men (aboard your ship alone!) that they appreciate your sentiments, your brother gets scared. Really, really scared! Especially, since _I_ am getting funny looks from the boys in white now, too – odd because We Who Walk try not to step on them, but otherwise we ignore each other, usually. So, since _their_ grapevine obviously spread from your side of the galaxy to mine, already, why can't _you_ give me the facts, sis?

Hug

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><p><em>Extract of data burst 61<em>_ORDX6Y09__: Incoming messages for SSD Executor; Sent 29xxxxxxxxx; Scan unsuspicious, Transmission authorized._

[From: Lieutenant H. N. Malan, CIN 985K718A914; To: Lieutenant E. A. Malan, CIN 104M659E204]

Talk to me, sis!

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><p><em>Extract of data burst 04<em>_BVLA1I82__: Incoming messages for SSD Executor; Sent 29xxxxxxxxx; Scan unsuspicious, Transmission authorized._

[From: Lieutenant H. N. Malan, CIN 985K718A914; To: Lieutenant E. A. Malan, CIN 104M659E204]

Cila!

* * *

><p><em>Data burst 73<em>_LEJH3J11__: Incoming messages for SSD Executor; Sent 29xxxxxxxxx; Irregularity detected, Transmission on hold._

[Unusual increase in transmissions between Lieutenant H. N. Malan, CIN 985K718A914 and Lieutenant E. A. Malan, CIN 104M659E204]

* * *

><p><em>Investigation concerning Lieutenant E. A. Malan stopped – Authorization: V<em>

* * *

><p><em>Extract of data burst 88<em>_PBTH2X45__: Messages transmitted by SSD Executor; Sent 30xxxxxxxxx; Transmission authorized._

[From: Major General M.J. Veers, CIN 482C718P633; To: Lieutenant H. N. Malan, CIN 985K718A914; CC: Lieutenant E. A. Malan, CIN 104M659E204]

Lieutenant,

It has been brought to my attention that lately your communications with your sister have increased in frequency far beyond the norm. Your concerns about her wellbeing do you credit, young man, your attempts to induce her to ignore the rules of Com security, however, do not! You will cease to do so, immediately.

Since the latter behaviour seems to be motivated mostly by the former, I will let it slide, _this once_, but know that I expect better from any officer serving under my command. I will leave it at your commanding officer's discretion, if he sees fit to introduce you to the contents of a certain report that was included in the latest GenInfo update.

Gen. Veers

* * *

><p><em>Extract of data burst 57FGIL7L38: Incoming messages for SSD Executor; Sent 30xxxxxxxxx; Scan unsuspicious, Transmission authorized.<em>

[From: Lieutenant H. N. Malan, CIN 985K718A914; To: Major General M.J. Veers, CIN 482C718P633]

Sir,

My apologies, sir. It won't happen again, sir!

Lt. Malan

* * *

><p><em>Internal message 974HGF8 aboard SSD Executor; Sent 30xxxxxxxxx.<em>

[From: Lieutenant E. A. Malan, CIN 104M659E204; To: Major General M.J. Veers, CIN 482C718P633]

Sir,

Thank you, sir!

Lt. Malan

* * *

><p><em>Extract of data burst 93<em>_PQAB5K42__: Messages transmitted by SSD Executor; Sent 30xxxxxxxxx; Scan unsuspicious, Transmission authorized._

[From: Lieutenant E. A. Malan, CIN 104M659E204; To: Lieutenant H. N. Malan, CIN 985K718A914]

Told you so!

* * *

><p>[1] Real-time holographic communication across galactic distances is state-of-the-art. It's also prohibitively consumptive in energy and specialized equipment and therefore reserved for high officials and most urgent reports. Enlisted personnel, trying to keep connected with a family half a galaxy away, composes a written message, transferred in data bursts of much lower energy.<p>

[2] Excerpt of _Imperial Forces Handbook_, Chapter 09: Communications, Section 14: Communications Security Precautions.

"For security reasons, each member of the Imperial Forces is assigned a unique, random identification number that serves as address for any communication to or from said member. […] Any mention of assigned unit, current station or any other information of possible strategic value is strictly prohibited, to ensure operational secrecy. All communications will be scanned by specialized programs for violations – further scans may be conducted by the ISB; or on orders of the commanding officers, subject to the requirements of the service."


End file.
